Gordon Stockade

This small reconstructed log stockade stands on its original French Creek site, just inside Custer State Park’s west entrance. It’s a short interpretive stop about a consequential Black Hills story: walk around the timber enclosure and read the signs, but expect a modest outdoor site rather than a full museum. The park lists it as open year-round.

The palisade surrounds a handful of reconstructed cabins, with small openings through the timber that frame the buildings inside. If the gate is open, you can walk among them; reports differ on whether the gate and cabins are accessible, so plan on seeing the exterior and interpretation rather than counting on entering every structure.

The Gordon Party arrived at the old French Creek camp on December 23, 1874, and finished its stockade by January 16, 1875. The square enclosure had walls about 80 feet long and 10 feet high, corner bastions, cabins and a well. It was built by 26 men, a woman and a child traveling with guide John Gordon.

The party followed the news of gold found during Custer’s 1874 expedition, but the Black Hills were within the Great Sioux Reservation under the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty, which prohibited white settlement. Cavalry removed the group within five months. Within two years, nearly 10,000 settlers had entered the Hills. The site makes that clash between the treaty and the rush for gold unusually concrete.

Today’s stockade is the third replica on the original site. Custer residents built the first in 1925, and the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilt it in 1941. The later structure deteriorated and closed for safety in the late 1990s before the current reconstruction. For a closer photo, use one of the wall openings to frame the cabins instead of taking only another wide shot of the palisade.